Kingfisher Airlines valuation under scanner; SFIO probes discrepancy

Zee Media Bureau

New Delhi: Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO) on Friday probed serious discrepancies in the rating of defunct Kingfisher Airlines.

The Vijay Mallya-promoted firm had to hypothecate the ‘Kingfisher’ brand to banks with an estimated value of Rs 4,100 crore. The evaluation was done by consultancy firm Grant Thornton.

The agency had also sent a notice to Grant Thornton seeking clarification on valuation.

Under fire over dues totalling over Rs 9,000 crore of long-grounded Kingfisher in unpaid loans and interest, Mallya left the country on March 2.

Mallya has been ordered by the court to present himself or produce valid reasons for absenting before agency investigators as scheduled on March 18 in Mumbai.

Meanwhile, the ED had recently written to the 17 banks consortium, led by SBI, who lent money to the grounded Kingfisher Airlines and later went to the Debt Recovery Tribunal (DRT) for recovery of these dues.

It has also sent official requests seeking details of the probe conducted by the Income Tax and Service Tax departments and the Serious Frauds Investigation Office(SFIO) against the airline in the past.

With Agency Inputs